My wife and I were just talking about this. We pay $600/m and the very few times we go to a doctor we end up paying anyways. We never meet the deductible but we can't not have insurance because we have a kid who does need it. In the twelve years we have paid we have never reached the deductible even with having a kiddo who's had surgery. Once you get past october it seems like they charge it to the following year if your close to meeting the deductible it's insane...
That’s not the problem with the healthcare in the US, because that eventually flips and you hit your deductible every year.
The problem is you lose healthcare if you need to quit your job and you pay more than any other country. And I attribute that simply to the middle man, aka the health insurance companies. They don’t seem to provide any benefit other than contributing at least 10% for pure profit reasons to the $3.4 trillion we spend every year on healthcare.
My biggest problem is some schmuck who I doubt has a medical degree, and has never seen me as a patient, but has absolute power over what a MEDICAL DOCTOR deems necessary.
At that point it really begins to sound like practicing medicine without a license to do so, let alone the knowledge required to get an MD.
Oh I'm sure they have a corrupt MD in their chain somewhere. I had a classmate in pharmacy school who was a lawyer and had no intention of being a regular pharmacist (retail or hospital). He just needed a PharmD to go with his JD to get a specific job in the insurance industry.
He told me it was to help keep them abreast of law changes but I'm sure they pressure him to provide a cheap yet legal solution. Probably have a JD/MD doing the same for medical procedures.
Sounds like you have a “low premium” high deductible plan. I had one of those. Where I paid every dollar until I hit $3.5K and then 20% until hit $7k and then paid nothing. I can see where you could get to $86k. I’d start looking for a job that comes with a better health plan. I now pay $400 a month and $20 co-pay here and there.
That’s a symptom of our system. There’s so many different plans and options, and it’s further obfuscated behind your company doing all the negotiating that it’s not actually a free market. We would be better off going to a single payer system.
Damn I know Brazil has its issues but clearly medical coverage isn't one. I don't think the US has a single insurer that covers a full hospital stay. The only doctors appointments I've ever seen covered is the yearly physical.